Saturday, January 21, 2012

ubiquity and tidings of Valentines

This song has no title, just words and a tune... well, okay, actually, it's an Elton John song from "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." My Mom had that record. It was a double LP, those were a big deal back in the day. "This Song Has No Tittle" is one of my favorites from that album along with "Grey Seal" and "The Ballad of Danny Bailey." Anyway, I like that song and when I thought about presenting another blog entry - it popped into my head.

I'm not a religious person, and I've never taken much stock in the adage that everything happens for a reason. I think there is the explicable and the inexplicable, and someday what was once inexplicable will one day be explained. Time marches on, time stands still... Yeah, I'm one of those people who likes Warren Zevon. We can't all be the same, you know.

Anyway, I tend to come from the camp of thinking that often (but not always) things are relative, and discordant threads can be connected. So, let's give it a whirl, shall we?

I just spent 20 minutes re-working my banner for my etsy shop. If I was a different person, then I might plan to do this stuff and have everything coordinated and whatnot. But that's not me. I looked at the stuff I was working on, I looked at the way stuff was organized in my shop... and I thought it's time for a new banner... since I think I had the current one for like 3 whole weeks. I hear that's like centuries in internet time.

I like internal rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance - that kind of stuff. So, after I'd been on etsy for what felt like a century I looked at my one shop and thought "well, this thing needs a name, I guess." I mean, if you go on the etsy forums — a whole gaggle of people will tell you that your shop name is really important or some such thing... but they'll tell you a lot of things.

My shop is actually sarahknight, but I can slap whatever text I want (within the bounds of reason) on the banner. So, I was bored for 10 minutes or whatever, and I thought up "technicolor emporium." It's rhymey & Latinate-ish, the latter part redundantly indicating it's former...

I seem to have dropped the name. It was, after all, just some thing in my banner; some thing that rhymed. But it was there for about a year, and well, the earth didn't stop rotating around the sun, so, well, it is what it is.

I had this idea that I would do the basic design and then just rotate a segment of a painting or a photo in or out for the background. That was the simplest design... and that lasted for about a year. At least it did until I re-formatted the design early this morning. It's the same difference, just without the idea of a name.

I am Sarah Knight, and the items in the shop are what I make. In real life, as opposed to the internet where this isn't surveillance footage, I make a lot of things. But in addition to sleeping, eating, showering, and leaving the house to go to work or the post office or to buy necessities — I make a lot of stuff. I draw, I paint, I take photographs, I make jewelry, I play with sculpey or clay on occasion... and for whatever reason I have a lot of glitter. I did some cleaning recently, and it's always funny to find stuff that you stashed away in some bag or box somewhere... and virtually every time, for whatever reason, there was a tube of glitter. You'd think I'd have something with glitter in the shop... but I don't.

So, I'm back to having an etsy shop with no title. It's just me — sarahknight. Not that anything has changed, really, because I have the same items. I just have a new banner. As I type this it's the second one from the bottom in that graphic. The previous one was the picture of sprinkles. It's a fun picture, but I never formatted it for the shop, and well... I dunno, it's getting on Valentine's Day, so I guess I should act more Valentines-ish.

I like chocolate and chocolates, I think you might have to be suffering from a medical disorder to not like chocolate or candy or sweet things... that's just not normal. But, I'm not a big Valentine's person. So, every year it rolls around, and I'm like, "oh, yeah, that."

This year I decided to make some Valentine's for people like myself slightly less committed to the conventions of Valentine's Day. I wanted to do something with collage, but I got halfway through that project and just kind of stalled into "meh" territory. It sits in a pile next to the paper cutter. Instead, I was cleaning and I have all these old books hanging around, and well, on etsy everyone prints stuff on old book pages. So, I decided to engage my inner hipster and I too would print stuff on old book pages and make Valentines...

As it turns out - my old book was a psychology text book, and the first page I ripped out - almost at random, since my criteria for a page was something with no pictures and mostly text - was about drugs and the brain. It felt ironically humorous, since I was printing the shape of a heart filled with a selection of one of my photos. Hallucinogen Hydrangea was actually the first one I printed. It seemed adroit. It still makes me chuckle. And well, I am that kind of person, I guess. We couldn't all be Martha Stewart or someone's wonderful mother.People less committed to 19th century poets and Victorian era decor need Valentines too...

So, while watching "The Finder" I glued my hearts to some poster-board that I cut to size and scored and folded, and then added a coat of varnish... and well, they're done. At least I can cross that off the "things I never got around to doing" list.

So, what does that have to do with my banner? Well, that red-winged blackbird photo is on one of my Valentines, since in order to make them I took a little trip down memory lane and sifted through my photos... the rest of it? Maybe not so much.

I changed up the font. I like Century Gothic. I like Coke, I like the color Violet. Pink Floyd is my favorite band, and I wear a lot of black concert t-shirts. Some things are just ubiquitous. But every once in a while you gotta change something up, or everything just turns into background noise.

So, I nixed Technicolor Emporium and picked a new font. I wanted something in a handwriting style. My go-to font is usually Bickley - because it's just a pretty font. But it wasn't fitting the mood... so I picked something different. Font geeks probably know what that's called. Basically, it's fancy, but it's not too pretty or too uniform. Looks a little less like script and a little more like handwriting - the fancy kind.

I'm totally guilty of being a casual devotee of fancy penmanship. For whatever reason I found making letters in certain shapes or styles to be entertaining way back when we were doing primers in elementary school. I'm quite fond of my own handwriting... you can see me being neat and uniform with my penmanship on my name on my business cards:

And you can see my unyielding fondness for Century Gothic. I like Century Gothic mostly for the circle shape of the "o" and the "e" but also for the "a." You see, my name is Sarah, and no one writes an "a" with that goofy little glyph thing on it (except maybe Lisa Bellamy in fifth grade). It's a relic, is really what I'm saying, and I'm not hipster enough to think it's cool.Anyway, sometimes people being snarky confuse Century Gothic with Helvetica... if you're having one of those moments — look at the "a" and you'll know which it is.

You probably know me as this face... well, also in my shiny new banner - yeah, those are my eyes. Yes, I do have green eyes. No, I'm not Irish, or descended from Irish people. I've eaten too much goulash to hold onto any such inclinations. Mom had green eyes, and so did Grandma Duda (nee Hajos)... of course, it also has something to do with the bey2 gene and the gey gene... Dad had brown eyes, and Grandma Knight has blue eyes. Yes, go make a punnet square now ; )

Anyway, the photo is one of the product shots I took for the lizard barrettes. Yeah, I'm a weird rock'n'roll kind of girl like that.In the event that you ever wondered...

That's me.

Mind you, it's a blurry shot, and since I'm trying to smile-ish for the photo I have sort of a dumb look on my face. I do not have glamorous teeth; thanks, Mom. So, yeah, I don't go for the toothy grin or the idea of spending $30,000.00 on dental work. And yes, I am wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt, and my favorite violet colored shirt with the little red flowers on it from the Gap which I bought at a thrift store like more than 10 years ago. Slackers represent.

Anyway, I spent the last couple of hours sifting through photos... it might not have been the most productive night, since other than a new banner and a new potential banner I didn't make anything per se. But well, it's January, and yesterday we had the coldest day so far this winter. Yes, it was a balmy 9˚F here in Michigan. Obviously that's why I scheduled my appointment to get the oil change yesterday. Brrrrrr.

Anyway, I look forward to April or May when it's warm enough to leave the house, because I'll probably go back to the marsh where I took that photo of the red-winged blackbird...

5 comments:

It's so much fun to play with banners and photos. I enjoy seeing your creative work. I balk on Hallmark Holidays and generally ignore Valentine's Day as an observable holiday. If people have a significant other, every day should be Valentine's Day. That's in a perfect world and we know that doesn't exist.

I have favorite fonts but never seem to stay long, depending on the need.V day is a bit lackluster, I hope to always get some chocolates.It is a way to get rid of the cabin fever many have staying in from the cold.

I'm kind of picky about my fonts, also so I know what you mean. When I first saw the various banners in your post, I thought you were going to ask for opinions. For the record, I would have chosen the one you are using. It's very well done. And look how cute you are! :)